Business

96% Pay Cut Anybody?

A French textile company is under fire for offering to relocate laid off workers to India with a 96% pay cut.

Carreman, which employs 150 people in Castres, France, offered nine terminated employees the option to “relocate” to their Bangalore plant at a monthly salary of $96, compared to the French legal minimum salary of $1,850.

Industry groups denounced the cynical offer as “shameful, humiliating, sadistic, and unacceptable,” while the country’s Industry Minister termed it a “provocation” and “profoundly shocking.”

In its defense, Carreman director Francois Morel said the company is obligated under French law to offer terminated employees the option to work at another company plant: “I know it’s stupid. But that’s the stupidity of the law.”